Middle schoolers consider the implication of polar exploration. In this polar exploration instructional activity, students research the expeditions that Admiral Peary, Dr. Cook, Captain Scott, and Roald Amundsen made to the North and...

Challenge learners who are studying famous polar explorers to read an excerpt from the diary of Thomas Orde-Lees. They then answer some questions about the explorer, and the conditions under which he was writing.

Second graders receive an "Expedition Ticket" to travel through the Polar Regions- the Arctic and the Antarctic. They research polar bears and make drawings that are to scale.

Students discuss Sir Ernest Shackleton and his participation in the Discovery expedition in 1901 to the South Pole. Students write a persuasive letter of application to an ad Shackleton placed in a London newspaper looking for recruits...

Students explore the concept of navigation in these two activities.

Students explain that globes are the best way to show positions of places, but flat maps are portable and can show great detail. They make a mercator projection of the route Lewis and Clark took on their journey.

This resource provides two ways to engage learners in using latitude, longitude, and research skills. In pairs, or on their own, learners will locate several Antarctic regions on a map. They will write the name of the place and a few key...

Students explore and examine how maps have been used in navigation. They research how travelers collected observations to keep track of their positions and plotted information on maps. Each student then makes a Mercator projection...

Students examine the formation of seamounts in the Gulf of Alaska. For this seamount lesson, student focus on how the Axial-Cobb-Eikelberg-Patton chain was formed. They learn the associated vocabulary, and watch a teacher demonstration...

This polar expedition took place in 2008, but you can still experience the thrill of following these scientists as they engage in research studying the changes in Greenland's ice sheet. Meet the research team and learn about the...

This site talks about the "Expedition you'd rather not go on." Click through this great on-line cartoon book to learn about Shackleton's polar expedition.

Travel on an expedition to Antarctica to see the Ross Sea through the eyes of Adelie penguins, and then discover the geology of 300,000-year-old lava flows high on Mount Morning.

Learn about Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated voyage to Antarctica aboard the "Endurance" and about the amazing rescue that followed, after the expedition was forced to abandon ship. Uses actual expedition photographs and diary entries to...

Online exhibit explores Arctic expeditions of the twentieth-century via the photos and field notes of researchers who experienced the "alien landscape rife with cold, darkness, and isolation."

Multimedia-rich exhibition documents the race, in 1911, to be the first to reach the South Pole. Two teams undertook the perilous journey, one British, led by Robert Scott, and one Norwegian, led by Roald Amundsen. With digital dioramas,...

A website about Richard E. Byrd, Dr. Frederick A. Cook, and Sir Hubert Wilkins and Antarctica exploration.

This concise site contains a brief history of Byrd's life along with an easy to read chronology of major events in his life.